1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a management system that can manage and maintain an image forming apparatus via a network. More specifically, the present invention relates to a remote operation method for an image forming apparatus configured to be operable, in case of trouble or any other phenomenon occurring in the image forming apparatus, by a management apparatus located at a remote place.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a conventional system capable of managing an operational status of an image forming apparatus (e.g., a printer, a copying machine, or a multifunction peripheral). The conventional management system can manage operational status information collected from the image forming apparatus and can provide various services to the image forming apparatus according to an operational status.
The services provided by the conventional management system include a service performed by a dispatcher that determines whether the dispatch of a service engineer is necessary in response to an error notification received from the image forming apparatus and sends a service engineer if necessary.
Further, a conventional technique discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-119962 can determine whether a trouble has occurred during an operation in an image forming apparatus and displays a trouble notification screen in case of occurrence of a trouble. The trouble notification screen includes a troubleshooting (trouble countermeasure) button. If the troubleshooting button is operated by a user, an appropriate troubleshooting method can be displayed.
The phenomenon, such as a trouble having occurred in the image forming apparatus, for which a user is required to perform a countermeasure operation at a setup place of the image forming apparatus discussed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-119962 includes a phenomenon (e.g., blur), the degree of which can be improved by changing device setting information (e.g., tint adjustment, density adjustment, and writing start position). In this case, it is desired that a management apparatus located at a remote place can perform a remote operation without sending a service engineer to work at the setup place of the image forming apparatus.
However, to perform a remote operation, it is necessary to establish a communication line between the image forming apparatus and the management apparatus. However, due to the presence of security barriers (e.g., requirement of client authorization, setting of firewall, etc.), it is generally difficult for the management apparatus to smoothly start the communication. Therefore, it is desired to provide a useful function (e.g., a connection permission button) to acquire user's permission with respect to a remote operation of the image forming apparatus to be performed by the management apparatus and cause the image forming apparatus to start the communication.
In this case, each time the connection permission button is operated by a user, the image forming apparatus is forced to communicate with the management apparatus. Therefore, if the connection permission button is unconditionally operated by a user, the processing (communication) load of the management apparatus increases greatly. Further, if the connection permission button is operated, the image forming apparatus is brought into a state vulnerable in security because of the communication with the image forming apparatus.
Therefore, it is desired that the connection permission button is operable only when the communication is really necessary, instead of unconditionally permitting users to operate the connection permission button, even in a case where a phenomenon having occurred in the image forming apparatus is processable in a remote operation.